Viaduct Cost Cutter, Thursday 30th May 2013

In the car park I realised I'd parked next to a couple of coffin dodger escapee's from Huntstete, Chris Rolfe and Mike Jones, it was like a cross from one of those old vaudeville comedy duo's and an old married couple.  Mike brings along a nice line in hessian handbags, decorated with ladybirds, is this what we have to look forward to as old age creeps up?

After reading one of my old blog entries, they had taken the trip up to Matchbox and spent a few hours there and Mike was proudly showing off his new S Class, complete with wheel/trolley kit. It will look out of place on the new bivvy pegs at Huntstrete........  How ridiculous is that idea, the carp fishermen are the reason I haven't renewed my Bathampton tab for the last couple of years.

Anyway, back to todays match, I had gone with the intention of fishing for carp, so 8mm pellets and 10mm meat were the mainstays of the bait bag, along with some betaine groundbait to make paste.  I wasn't too chuffed when peg 90 revealed itself and less so when I saw the wind was blowing off my back and into the opposite corner, making 94 a much more attractive prospect.

I set up a shallow wag, a full depth wag, a lead rod, and four topkits one for banded pellet, one for meat at 5m, a paste rig and a margin rig. The margin and paste rigs remained motionless when tried, so thats all about them. I had, at the last minute, nicked the last few slices of white bread from home  - not that I eat the horrible stuff -  and stuck it in the bait bag, I started with this on the lead and had two 9lbers in the first 25 minutes, but with no liners or other bites after an hour, that went up the bank where it belongs.

Out on the full depth waggler and a couple of missed bites before connecting with a rocket powered entity, that took off and must have been 30 yards away when I tried to turn it and the 6lb sensor reel line parted with a sickening crack, right on the bail arm roller - its a pretty new reel and an examination of the roller showed no sharp or damaged areas.  So re-tackled up,  another bite and a good fish fairly hooked, I played it for ages and it managed to pick up a sunken branch from the margin, which promptly slid down the line and disgorged the hook.

Shortly after a 2lb skimmer fell to the waggler before all indications on that line stopped, so a switch to the meat line saw the float twitching like an epileptic with St Vitus dance and the meat being taken off the hook.  Finally a couple of skimmers fell to this, but it was a lot of effort for little return.

There seemed to be more skimmers than carp in the peg, so I rummaged through my gear and found a pint and a half of 6mm pellets, putting these on and loose feeding them saw a decent run of simmers and bream come to the net, I was now cursing not bringing groundbait, worms etc.  At 15.25 I hooked and landed another carp, this slowed down the skimmer action, with only a couple more before hooking another carp on the last put in.  The scales gave me 36.07 for the four carp and 28.11 of bream/skimmers.  This was enough to take 2nd silvers on the lake and a pick up, welcome, but totally unintended.  Top silvers on the day was a creditable 60.01 from Craig 'Trigger' Edmunds, taken on 6mm hard pellet.

1) Dick Bull 159.13 peg 114
2) Lewis Greenwood- King 137.12 peg 126
3) Chris Rolfe 131.04 peg 118
4) Tony Whittcomb 124.05 peg 129
5) Mr Unreadable 104.09 peg 94
6) K Guppy 103.15 peg 98

Silvers

1) Craig Edmunds 66.01 peg 77
2) John Bradford 29.12 peg 135
3) Chris Fox 28.11 peg 90

As Promised, the full and final tables. The columns to the right in red are the worst result, which is dropped.

Pole Only 2013 Overall Table
Final Table								Worst Result
Name			P		Weight			P	Weight
1	Pete Bartlett		40		370	4		3	23.04
2	Tom Thick		37		357	12		4	12.04
3	Mike Nicholls		37		246	0		4	73.02
4	Lance Tucker		35		225	13		5	19.07
5	Tim Ford		34		275	4		5	14.11
6	Lewis Jones		33		365	2		3	33.15
7	Bob Gullick		32		195	12		5	37.13
8	Tony Rixon		31		300	3		5	6.08
9	Brian Slipper		31		285	9		0	0.00
10	Joe McMahon		30		243	3		0	0.00
11	Mark Broomsgrove		28		235	3		3	15.02
12	Chris Fox		28		196	5		2	18.09
13	Andy France		27		262	14		2	20.10
14	John Osborne		26		199	2		1	11.07
15	Matt Tomes		26		184	11		2	15.06
16	Dave Wride		26		177	4		1	8.00
17	Paul Faiers		26		175	13		1	22.03
18	Mike Owens		24		259	14		1	2.15
19	Bela Bakos		23		199	15		3	23.11
20	Nigel Vigus		23		114	14		1	23.02
21	Russ Peck		21		153	3		1	12.14
22	Glenn Bailey		19		200	4		2	1.08
23	John Bradford		19		115	4		0	0.00
24	Eddie Wynne		18		154	15		1	15.09
25	Nick Harvey		18		118	12		0	0.00
26	Glenn Calvert		17		136	6		1	3.14
27	Kev Perry		17		119	10		1	13.00
28	Ken Rayner		16		137	3		1	5.00
29	Gordon Canning		16		106	9		1	7.14
30	Dave Poole		15		79	10		0	0.00
31	Jason Radford		13		131	1		0	0.00
32	Paul Lasson		12		100	12		1	20.04

Pole Only 2013
Silvers Final Table 2013								Worst Result
Name			P		Weight			P	Weight
1	Mark Broomsgrove		40		87	0		0	0.00
2	John Bradford		39		59	2		0	0.00
3	Paul Faiers		36		80	8		1	1.06
4	Glenn Calvert		36		71	12		5	1.14
5	Chris Fox		35		50	13		3	1.00
6	Kev Perry		34		35	3		5	12.00
7	Russ Peck		31		60	4		3	1.03
8	Mike Owens		31		33	5		2	0.07
9	Nigel Vigus		30		34	14		3	7.10
10	Pete Bartlett		30		20	7		4	17.01
11	Lance Tucker		28		46	2		0	0.00
12	Dave Wride		27		49	5		5	3.02
13	Dave Poole		27		40	1		0	0.00
14	Eddie Wynne		27		18	12		0	0.00
15	Brian Slipper		26		32	13		0	0.00
16	Paul Lasson		23		40	8		0	0.00
17	Matt Tomes		22		38	3		1	0.09
18	Ken Rayner		22		34	6		2	0.12
19	Tim Ford		21		25	11		0	0.00
20	Tony Rixon		21		25	5		0	0.00
21	Glenn Bailey		20		49	3		0	0.00
22	Andy France		19		26	13		0	0.00
23	Tom Thick		18		52	12		0	0.00
24	Bob Gullick		18		27	12		2	0.08
25	Joe McMahon		17		18	0		0	0.00
26	Jason Radford		16		21	13		0	0.00
27	Mike Nicholls		15		17	2		0	0.00
28	Gordon Canning		13		13	10		1	0.04
29	Bela Bakos		13		9	4		0	0.00
30	John Osborne		12		21	12		1	0.15
31	Lewis Jones		8		3	2		0	0.00
32	Nick Harvey		2		2	4		0	0.00